


The Grand Magister's Indulgence

by shinyforce



Category: Warcraft - All Media Types, World of Warcraft
Genre: Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-18
Updated: 2015-11-18
Packaged: 2018-05-02 07:30:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5239826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinyforce/pseuds/shinyforce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rommath has an early morning visitor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Grand Magister's Indulgence

It is late when Rommath looks up from his astrological confluence charts. More than late: his candles are guttering, and the sky outside is the luminous indigo of pre-dawn, quiet and cold. The curtains hang open by the window, forgotten during the trance of his calculations. So much work. Always so much work. But what would he have, if not this?

There is a scratch at the door, and then a chirp, insistent.

Rommath massages his eyes and stands, smothering a yawn. His back complains, creaky from a night spent hunched over charts. He hears Halduron’s voice in his head, telling him the virtues of breaks every hour, of the benefits of good posture, of the unnaturalness of being inside all the time. He knows he’s right, but he’s damned if he’s ever going to admit it. Maybe he’ll bring in one of those hippie consultants, get  _them_  to advise the Magisterium. A new chair might be nice. He can charge it to the health and safety fund.

There is another scratch at the door.

“So demanding,” Rommath murmurs.

He opens the door a crack, and a little calico cat slips in to wind around his legs. She mews in censure.

“Yes, yes, I’m late, I know.”

The journey back to his desk is perilous; the cat, now she has found him, is reluctant to disengage, lest he disappear before feeding her.

“I’m hungry too, but you don’t see me complaining.” He plucks a pouch of food out of one of his desk drawers. “Fish today.” The cat purrs as he kneels down and scratches her behind the ears. “It will keep your fur glossy.” No cat of Rommath’s, stray or not, will be left to suffer with inferior care and grooming.

The food smells distressingly good as he empties it into the dish. When did he last eat? The previous day feels a lifetime ago.

“If you vomit on my carpet I will be displeased.” The little cat is wolfing her food down, seemingly as hungry as Rommath feels. “Though I suppose you shall apportion the blame to me.”

When she has finished, the cat leaps gracefully into Rommath’s lap, where he strokes her with a gentle hand. She is pleasantly warm, and the soft rumble of her purrs fills him with a much-longed for sense of calm. If only all the demands placed on him were so simple.

“You’re getting tubby,” he remarks, as he brushes against her belly. The cat does not answer, of course, but he realises the significance of his words just as if she had. “Well well. No wonder you’re hungry. Who is it? Not that mangy ginger from Murder Row, I hope?” He feels no abashment in conversing with a cat – as its only actual participant, the discourse is, as a matter of course, higher quality than that of the Silvermoon Assembly.

“I shall get you a box. Is that something you would like?” Soft; her fur is soft. “I shall take that purr as a yes.”

Rommath sighs. He is already tallying and planning. It never seems to end. At this point responsibility and duty are in his blood, coursing through his veins like a pathosis.

_What’s one more, though?_

As he dozes off, fingers still reflexively stroking the little cat’s fur, he wonders if he can convince the Regent Lord that he’s in need of a kitten.


End file.
